Istvaan III Atrocity
The Battle of Istvaan III, also known as the Istvaan III Atrocity, was the treacherous campaign conducted by the Chaos-corrupted Warmaster Horus that served both to amass those forces loyal to him without suspicion, and also cull those Loyalist elements within their ranks whose loyalties he suspected. The destruction of Istvaan III by virus-bombing and the subsequent internecine battle that followed between the Sons of Horus, Death Guard, Emperor's Children and World Eaters Traitor Legions and their own Loyalist elements was the first overt sign of Horus' turn to Chaos, and the first battle of the Horus Heresy in the early 31st Millennium. History Istvaan System Compliance ]] An ancient Terran proverb once said that all wars, no matter how bloody or great, begin with but a single shot fired. For the great cataclysm known as the Horus Heresy that was to engulf the Imperium and bring death and calamity to unnumbered billions, that proverbial shot was fired on Istvaan III when brother turned against brother. It had only been fifteen years earlier, when the world of Istvaan III and the worlds within the surrounding system was brought into Imperial Compliance by the 27th Expeditionary Fleet led by Primarch Corax and his Raven Guard Legion. The military forces of the indigenous Istvaanians were professional soldiers who did not break easily, even when confronted with the might of Space Marines. There was some resistance, but the last elements of the aggressive faction were destroyed by the Raven Guard at the Redarth Valley on Istvaan III. An Istvaanian delegation formally surrendered before the Primarch Corax and the 800 companies of Raven Guard Space Marines that comprised his XIX Legion. They kneeled as a defeated foe but were welcomed into the fold as men of the Imperium. Though they had waged war against one another, the Imperial Truth had prevailed and the Istvaanians had sworn to accept its teachings. By proving themselves men of wisdom and civilisation, they were deemed fitting partners for the many other worlds of the nascent Imperium. The Remembrancer Order had not yet been foisted upon the Space Marine Legions by the Council of Terra at this time, but a substantial civilian contingent was left behind to begin the integration of the Istvaanian population with the Imperial Truth. This task was given to Vardus Praal, formerly a Major of the XI Lastran Rifles and later career politician of the Ultima Segmentum Court. Given Praal's record both as a soldier and civil administrator, he was deemed worthy of being left behind as the world's Imperial Planetary Governor to command Istvaan III in the name of the Imperium, to ensure continued compliance and manage the dismantling of the traditional religious structures that defined the planet's autochthonous society. Insurrection on Istvaan III Over time, matters quickly worsened on Istvaan III, as Praal ordered the garrison to tear down temples and breach the sealed vaults of ancient religious sites in order to break the subtle but deep hold superstitious fears had over the Istvaanians and bring them into the light of Imperial Truth, but as the success of this nothing could be ascertained as Warp Storms that continued to block Istvaan from the Imperium's core worlds worsened and all communications ceased. Six years after the last official comminque from Istvaan III, a Death Guard patrol ship on the outer edge of its Legion's fleet, near Neo-geddon on the very edge of explored space, picked up a faint echo of an Astropathic transmission from Istvaan III, garbled and incomplete its central message was however clear, Istvaan III was in religious rebellion, the Imperial government had collapsed, and Vardus Praal, now turncoat and perhaps turned mutant or psyker, was leading the revolt, and the streets of Choral City running red with the blood of non-believers. The message was estimated to be at least two years old, possible six, but it could not be ignored. For Istvaan III and its tens of millions to have rebelled from compliance was a mar upon the Great Crusade that could not be tolerated, lest such sedition and malcontent spread, but that an anointed Imperial Commander who had received his office by the writ of the Emperor himself led the revolt was a crime that demanded the swiftest and most resolute punishment possible. It fell to Horus, the Warmaster, to bring Praal and all of Istvaan III to judgement, and he publicly vowed to make a fearful, bloody example to all the worlds of the Imperium of the price of sedition. But what few knew or suspected at the time was that the Istvaan III rebellion had provided Horus with the perfect opportunity to strike the first blow of his own rebellion, a blow that would fall upon his own. Conspiracy Horus, corrupted by Chaos]] The reconquest of Istvaan III provided Horus with the perfect opportunity both to amass those forces loyal to him without suspicion, and also rid his own Legion and those of his closest allies of those within their ranks whose loyalties were suspect. The Istvaan System's distant location and prevalent warp storms made it a perfect screen for the dark deeds that were to come, and orders were given for four Legions, the Death Guard Emperor's Children, World Eaters and the Warmaster's own Sons of Horus, to rendezvous at Istvaan, their approaches made to bypass the storms which raged to the galactic south-west of the system. Horus took this opportunity to use his authority as Warmaster and move the forces of the Imperial military as game-pieces on a board of Regicide to a configuration of his choosing. He commanded the Primarchs Lion El'Jonson, Sanguinius and Roboute Guilliman to muster their Legions in preparation for a series of missions in the Signus Cluster and Veridian Systems, each in dangerous and cut-off regions of space. Perceiving no obvious reason to doubt the Warmaster's motives, the three Primarchs set about planning their missions and transporting their Legions. So it was that three of the most powerful and staunch Leigons - the Dark Angels, the Blood Angels and the Ultramarines, were sent by Horus to regions far from Terra and from the Istvaan System where they could not observe or intervene in what was to happen next. As for the rest - the Night Lords, Alpha Legion, Iron Warriors, Raven Guard, Salamanders and Iron Hands, all were actively involved in various campaigns and events across the Imperium. Safely occupied their time would come later, be it for corruption or destruction. The Word Bearers were already woven into the treachery that was to follow by ties that would not become apparent until much later. The White Scars and Imperial Fists were on operation in the Segmentum Solar and too close to the Emperor for Horus to chance contacting them without raising suspicion while the Space Wolves and Thousand Sons were already caught up in a murderous machination, the Burning of Prospero, that was long in the making. With humanity ignorant of the great and terrible events that were about to unfold, a massive war fleet gathered at the edges of the Istvaan System as elements of four Space Marine Legions began to arrive, and the first actions of the campaign undertaken to destroy rebel outposts in the outer reaches of the system as the fleet coalesced. The elite 1st Company of the Emperor's Children Legion led by Lord Commander Eidolon fought in concert with the Death Guard Legion's 7th Company under the command of Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro against traitorous forces on Istvaan Extremis, the outermost planet within the Istvaan System. Whilst fighting against a powerful Slaaneshi psyker known as a Warsinger, Garro sustained serious injuries; crushing damage to his torso and arm as well as the loss of his right leg from the mid-thigh down. He was only saved from certain death by the timely ministrations of the Emperor's Children's Chief Apothecary Fabius. Taking stock of the desperate situation, the Emperor's Children Lord Commander Eidolon made use of a hitherto unknown ability -- a modified tracheal implant bonded with the Lord Commander's vocal chords, that allowed him to produce a nerve paralysing shriek similar to that employed by certain warrior breeds of the xenos Laer. This powerful ability killed the Warsinger and helped the Astartes carry the day. The Traitors Gather Fulgrim was delayed but the sizable task force of Emperor's Children led by Lord Commander Eidolon made the rendezvous, and formed up with the rest of the fleet as it closed on Istvaan III. Horus' war host therefore consisted of the majority of his own Legion, plus significant portions of the Death Guard and their Primarch Mortarion, the World Eaters and their Primarch Angron, and Eidolon's smaller task force. Along with three Primarchs in attendance, itself a rare event, this constituted one of the largest concentrations of Imperial military force seen since the battle for the Pargor Hith System against the Orks of Charhack almost a decade previously, comprising well over 200,000 Space Marines, although exact figures cannot be corroborated, alongside Titan support from the Legio Mortis, Legio Audax and Legio Vulpa and a number of auxiliary units. Though accounts of what occurred next remain a matter of conjecture it seems apparent that as Istvaan III was surrounded by the war fleet the Warmaster met with the two Primarchs and Eidolon on his flagship, the Battle Barge the Vengeful Spirit. This was ostensively done to formulate strategy for the coming campaign, but it also seems to have been the case that the face-to-face meeting was for Horus to gauge his allies' loyalty and preparations for the coming storm. It appears that as Horus had anticipated, both Angron and Mortarion and Eidolon, speaking for his absent master, had identified elements of their Legions whose loyalty to the Emperor was unshakeable or who would could not otherwise be trusted to follow the Warmaster's line. These loyal Space Marines would pose a great threat to Horus' conspiracy if they were not dealt with immediately and it appears that it was only at this moment that Horus revealed to his co-conspirators his shocking plan to rid their Legions of these dissident factions. Those sections of the four Legions whose loyalty to Horus could not be guaranteed (approximately one-third of each Legion) were commanded to prepare for an assault on the planet beneath and would form its core. The Warmaster's plan called for a primary strike conducted almost entirely by Drop Pod with limited gunship and teleporter support, with only the Death Guard forces landing with any significant armoured vehicle contingents in the first wave. So separated, and with no means of escape off the planet, those Loyalists who did not die in the taking of Istvaan III would instead find that Horus planned to make it their graveyard anyways. Onslaught ]] For the assault on the sprawling proto-hive of Khry Vanak, Istvaan III's political and cultural capital ("Choral City" in translation), four primary target zones had been identified which housed the seat of government, and presumably where the Traitor Vardus Praal might be located. This would be the focus of the Emperor's Children's attack. It was in the plazas which adjoined the palace and formed the principal arterial intersection of the city's transport network that resistance was likely to manifest quickly, and this was given as the World Eater's target to first seize and then spread beyond. The western fortification wall with its Imperial-built bastions and the bunker network they protected were to be the target of the Death Guard's assault, with the goal of either eradicating or boxing in the garrison forces they contained. The final, and perhaps most difficult, target was located in the east of the city; a vast and ancient complex of tomb-spires, shrines and temples known by the indigenous peoples as the Siren Hold. Given the assumed religious forces of the rebellion and the psyker-witches known as the Warsingers also encountered on Istvaan Extremis, the Siren Hold too was afforded that status of primary target and the Sons of Horus assigned to the attack orders to destroy everything and everyone they found within. A score of secondary targets to be hit in the first wave were also identified, including the star port and several prominent infrastructural complexes and numerous smaller, splinter forces assigned to take or destroy. Legion of Death hammer the western fortifications of the Choral City]] Terminators move relentlessly towards the doomed Traitors, bringing the wrath of the Emperor]] The first assault wave when it came showered Istvaan III with an iron rain of Drop Pods, which smashed into the Choral City like hammer blows, while strategic lance-strikes from the orbital fleet hit ground targets across the surface of Istvaan III, ensuring total air-dominance for the Space Marine Legions. Resistance was heavy, far heavier than the initial invasion had seen, but against such a force as the Space Marines now unleashed against this world, ultimately futile. Against the walls and trench works of the western fortification line the Death Guard implacably hammered home their attack against troops that had once been loyal to Terra but were no half-insane, mutilated things. They were armed with Imperial weapons taken from the garrison stores, their trench lines anchored with mortar nests and emplaced Autocannon set up with interlocking fields of fire with all the lethality of Officio Militaris expertise. Although reeling from their initial assault, the Traitors met the Astartes with Basilisks and Malcador heavy tanks which rumbled up from concealed emplacements beneath the ground. But Mortarion's Legion was indefatigable and came down right within the cordon of fire so that the Istvaanian's artillery was left firing blind and overshooting the drop zones. With shells bursting around them the Death Guard moved in relentlessly, Terminators and heavy support squads toppling guntowers and punching their way into bunkers, while Tactical squads stormed trench after trench, sweeping them of life with methodical volleys of Bolter fire. Gunships roared in and dropped Vindicator and Land Raider tanks to assail the bastions and high-walled revetments of slab-like granite that shielded the city from the plains to the west, and the close barrage from both sides of the wall soon took its toll. Soon the great bastions were left in smoking ruins, their fate sealed as a maniple of Titans from the Legio Mortis made earth-shaking groundfall to the west of the city and unleashed the awesome destructive force of their turboblasters and gatling cannon against the wall, pulverising battlements and causing granite to run like molten wax. Battle for the Precentor's Palace Assault Squad during the Battle of the Precentor's Palace]] heavy support squad burn their way in from the upper levels of the Precentor's Palace.]] The battle for the Precentor's Palace and its environs was a chaotic slaughter. The World Eaters attacked enmasse, via drop pod assault, striking first as they smashed into the open plazas like a meteor storm, leaving the vast stonework colonnades and terraces a shattered wasteland. As thousands of World Eaters poured fourth they killed everything in their path, overwhelming disordered garrison troops in a tide of howling violence, cutting down hundreds in mere minutes as they spread out like a swarm devouring insects. As the din of carnage engulfed the city centre, a disordered roar born of countless screams, battle-cries, thunderous bolt shots and the growl of uncounted chainblades hacking into flesh, fresh golden-fire streaks came down in tight order, aimed like a hunter's bolt at the Precentor's Palace itself. Rebuilt by the Imperial military architects to be both an imposing symbol of Imperial authority and a last redoubt in case of civil insurrection, the Precentor's Palace stood as a tried and tested piece of military architecture designed to resist, if not defy, bombardment. The cordon of defence for the Precentor's Palace was built as proof against direct ground assault. It was a defence the Emperor's Children's attack plan fully intended to circumvent. With a precision landing vector few Legions could have matched, the Emperor's Children wave landed directly on their target, clustering around its sprawling scatter of entranceways and admission halls. With speed and ruthless force bred from the zeniths of training and pre-planning the Legion was famed for, already on top of the inner defences the Emperor's Children fought their way into the Precentor's Palace from a score of entry points against fierce resistance, while Dreadnought siege-claws and Legionary Melta Guns hacked and burned new ways in from the level of the doomed roof above. The Siren's Hold assault the Siren Hold]] attack the forces of the Imperium]] Legion Berserkers during the Battle of the Precentor's Palace]] of the Emperor's Children and his personal bodyguard fight their way into the depths of the Siren Hold.]] Across the city, with the sundering force of the claw-strike of a great predatory beast, the Sons of Horus drop pod assault descended upon the Siren Hold. Larger than the precincts of the Precentor's Palace, the Siren Hold was a scatter of great irregular conical tomb-spires, in appearance almost like deep ocean smoke-stacks, jutting hundreds of metres into the air. Scattered and under heavy fire from the outset, the Sons of Horus nevertheless rallied to the attack with their customary discipline and battle-lust, and the Siren Hold quickly became a tortuous, multi-storey killing ground, filled with shrapnel and smoke. It was here the Warsingers made their first appearance in strength. This psyker-witches were able to manipulate sound by the means of strange relic-technology to take to the air and surround themselves with bubbles of shielding force. Their screaming songs were able to shatter the ceramite armour of the Space Marines and rupture the flesh and powder the bone within, and drove the warrior-cultists that defended them to inhuman levels of fanaticism so that they hurled themselves at the Sons of Horus heedless of the shredding bolter fire that met them. As the battle was fully joined the death toll mounted staggeringly as a great paean of howling sound engulfed the Choral City, drowning out even the din and cacophony of battle - an unnatural scream that tore at the brain and sent the people of Istvaan III into shuddering paroxysms of uncontrolled hatred. It was an auditory barrage that only the Space Marines' willpower and auto-sense baffled armour allowed them to resist and fight on regardless of the strange assault. At the western walls and trench works the Death Guard and the Legio Mortis had left the great bulwarks in rubble and now the Legionaries were brutally sweeping the bunkers and tunnel networks beneath clear of defenders, while in the plaza area the World Eaters were surrounded by a sea of slaughter. Whatever dark power drove the terrified populace suddenly drove them forwards towards their attackers, heedless of their lives as they came at the World Eaters, first in dozens, then hundreds and then thousands. Unarmed and unarmoured, the screaming, laughing human waves recklessly came to Angron's already blood-spattered warriors to die, and the World Eaters were keen to oblige. As wave after wave came at the World Eaters they were pushed back by simple overwhelming weight of numbers. Warriors fought back to back, sending Frag Grenades into the mass of densely packed bodies hacking and slaying until they were left with ramparts of dripping meat. The XII Legion's heavy support squads ran their weapons dry cutting great reaping swathes through the onrushing crowds with their Heavy Bolters and Missile Launchers. In the tangled warrens of the Siren Hold and the inner walls of the Precentor's Palace victory was being clawed from the enemy a metre at a time, but not without cost. The unnatural psyker-powers of the Warsingers slew many before they were brought down, and elite warriors of the rebellion's inner-sanctum were encountered - surgically modified and mutilated, clad in black vitrified armour and bearing strange and hitherto unknown relic weapons that spat killing blasts of sound or darts of liquid metal. Deep within the Tomb Spires, the Sons of Horus spearhead, under the command of senior Captain Garviel Loken fought their way into a strange, corpse-filled shrine of foul idolatry, later named Death's Tomb, and slew the Warsingers there, while at roughly the same time, although having suffered heavy casualties, a small strike group of Emperor's Children under the command of the famed swordsmen Captain Lucius fought their way into Vardus Praal's throne room and confronted the traitor. Praal, armoured in twisted baroque splendour and wielding strange psycho-sonic weaponry, was indeed master of this strange and arcane cult rebellion, but even his augmented might was not enough to best Captain Lucius who slew him in desperate battle. Regardless of whether Praal's death served to cut the head off the serpent, or if the destruction of the vile shrine at the centre of the Siren Hold was its cause, the strange cacophony that had held sway over the city collapsed and with it the power that had maintained the Istvaanians' resistance was ended. Within hours the rebellion was in tatters with all of the invasion force's objectives secured and tens of thousands of the enemy dead in the wake of the assault. The victorious Space Marines were jubilant, their victory hard-won and well-deserved, but unbeknownst to them, disaster was about to strike. Betrayal begins.]] Shortly after the battle had turned in the Space Marines' favour, all communications with the orbiting fleet had ceased and the Titans of the Legio Mortis began a silent and implacable withdrawal beyond the city walls into the empty plains beyond. With inexorable slowness the great battleships and battle barges of the combined fleet; Vengeful Spirit, Firebird, Andronius, Killing Star, Indomitable Will, Gauntlet of Spite, Warchild, and Conqueror descended into low orbit and began saturation bombardment of the planet. Orbital bomb racks bloomed and tiered decks of macro-cannon batteries unleashed torrent after torrent of shells downward into Istvaan III's lower atmosphere. The deadly cargo was the Life-eater Virus, one of the most terrible Exterminatus-class weapons in the Imperial arsenal, and a weapon whose use only the Warmaster and the Emperor could have commanded. Dispersed by concussive charge from a thousand exploding munitions, the life-eater virus began its work in moments, infecting and destroying, a rapidly-spewing necrophage which turned every living thing it came into contact with to sickening, liquid rot. Human flesh sloughed from bones and screams were cut off as victims drowned in the decaying fluids of their own lungs. Plant life withered and melted into brown-black sludge as if time had turned them to the aged blight of years in mere minutes. Black gales of rot and corpse vapour moaned through the concrete and steel canyons of the cities, sounding the death knell of eight billion souls. Beyond the graveyard cityscapes the wide plains and jungles collapsed into cankerous decay, while the oceans turned to greenish sludge so that to the war ships of the Warmaster's fleet above it appeared that cancerous stains rapidly spread across the surface of the planet until it hung like rotten fruit against the blackness of the void. Istvaan III died. But the destruction was not over. An entire planet’s worth of decaying matter wreathed the atmosphere of Isstvan III in a thick shawl of combustible gasses. All it took was a single burning lance strike from the Vengeful Spirit to set the planet aflame. In a second, the air itself caught light, ripping across the landscape in a howling maelstrom of fire and noise. Entire continents were laid bare, their landscapes seared to bare rock, their decayed populations vaporized in seconds as winds of fire swept across their surfaces in a deadly gale of blazing destruction. Cities exploded as gas lines went up, blazing towers of fire whipping madly in the deadly firestorm. Nothing could survive and flesh, stone and metal were vitrified or melted in the unimaginable temperatures. Entire sprawls of buildings collapsed, the bodies of their former occupants reduced to ashen waste on the wind, palaces of marble and industrial heartlands destroyed in gigantic mushroom clouds as the storm of destruction swept around Isstvan III with relentless, mindless destruction until it seemed as though the entire globe was ablaze. Those Astartes who had survived the viral attack found themselves consumed in flames as they desperately sought to find cover once more. But against this firestorm there could be no cover for those who had dared to brave the elements. By the time the echoes of the recoil had faded on the Warmaster’s flagship, billions had died and Istvaan III had become a dead planet. Warmaster Horus had at last declared his hand and openly defied the Emperor, and so consigned the galaxy to civil war. He had also planned that the virus bombardment would destroy a host of Space Marines he could not trust to fight for hm in the coming struggle with the Emperor, but as was soon to become apparent his plan's perfection had failed. Wrath & Ruin Even before the first treacherous blow struck, the Warmaster's plan had, unknown to him, begun to unravel. Before the bombs fell, the impending atrocity had been discovered by several among the fleet who remained loyal to their Emperor and their comrades and who resisted. Chief among these was Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro of the Death Guard, a Terran veteran and one of the original recruits of the XIV Legion. Garro acted swiftly, rallying Loyalists to him and successfully commandeering the heavy frigate Eisenstein, and signalling warning messages to his battle-brothers on the planet's surface. Captain Saul Tarvitz]] Elsewhere amid the Emperor's Children fleet, Captain Saul Tarvitz, a line officer of his Legion who had long harboured deep suspicions of his Legion's growing secrecy and actions, had uncovered the truth mere minutes before the onslaught was to begin. Powerless to prevent what was to come, Tarvitz stole a waiting Thunderhawk gunship and descended to the planet's surface, carrying his own warning of the horror that was about to be unleashed. Those that heard or passed on Tarvitz's warning took shelter before the virus-bombs struck. The World Eaters on the planet's surface were the furthest from cover and suffered the worst of the initial bombardment. Some had reached the safety of the bunkers, but many more had not. Warriors fell to their knees as the virus penetrated their armoured bodies, deadly corrosive agents laced into the viral structure of the weapons dissolving exposed pipes and armour joints, or finding their way inside through battle damage. Astartes screamed. The sound was all the more shocking for its very existence rather than for the horror of its tone. The virus broke down cellular bonds at the molecular level and its victims literally dissolved into a soup of rancid meat within minutes of exposure, leaving little but sloshing suits of rotted armour. Even many of those who reached the safety of the sealed bunkers died in agony as they shut the doors only to find they had brought the lethal virus inside with them. When the firestorm began after the initial bombardment, those Astartes who had survived the viral attack found themselves consumed in flames as they desperately sought to find cover once more. But against this firestorm there could be no cover for those who had dared to brave the elements. Receiving no such warning, others were not so fortunate however, and many Loyalists and suspected Loyalists not assigned to the ground attack looked on in shock as the virus bombs fell, only to find knives waiting for their backs. Many resisted valiantly but, caught utterly unprepared for such perfidy, were destroyed. This fate not only awaited Loyalist Space Marines but others, including large numbers of human auxiliary troops, support staff, iterators and functionaries who, caught up within the ships of the fleet, were massacred as teh Legionaries loyal to Horus in their midst turned on them with merciless violence. Even here however not all went to plan and the "mere" humans, in many cases underestimated by the superhuman Legiones Astartes, put up considerable resistance or fled into the bowels of the great ships and had to be hunted down at length, often carrying out campaigns of sabotage in the process. During the orbital attack at least one torpedo-monitor, the Ducroix, remained in Loyalist hands and turned its firepower on the Traitor ships in a futile attempt to interdict the bombardment, destroying several escort ships and inflicting significant damage on the Battleship Killing Star before it was ripped apart by traitor fire. Having refused the order to surrender, the Mechanicum Ordo Reductor Galleass Xerxes 9-7-7, a vessel that had joined the fleet late and was not part of the Warmaster's plans, also had to be shot down at considerable cost to its attackers, its disintegrating hulk descending into Istvaan III's burning skies and lost amid the flames. As this was occurring on the fringes of the fleet cordon the heavy cruiser Sunstone was the scene of a protracted on-board struggle. Here the sworn lifeguard of the Terran Plenipotentiary, the renowned Duke Mortecher, turned what should have been a simple takeover of the ship by a delegation of the Emperor's Children to assassinate the Council of Terra's political emissary, into a frantic deck-by-deck battle for control of the vessle. It is not known what was to finally occur aboard the Sunstone, but as the firestorm raged on Istvaan III below, the Terran warship suffered a catastrophic detonation in her forward magazine, leaving the Sunstone a splintered wreck. Flight of the Eisenstein frigate Eisenstein]] As this maelstrom of confusion and destruction was unfolding, the Eisenstein Category:B Category:Chaos Space Marines Category:History Category:Imperial Campaigns Category:Imperium Category:Space Marines